


Soft Hearts / Electric Souls

by astra (hauntedpunk)



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Amica Endurae, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Not Super Accurate Timelines Or Background Characters hehehrjwer, i don't know anything about anything outside of mtmte/ll so this is gonna be a mess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-11 14:02:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15973805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedpunk/pseuds/astra
Summary: "'One letter a week,' Whirl calls from the door of the ship. 'Don’t forget about me, Six-Wings!'Brainstorm drafts the first letter that night, three words long, sends it the next evening: I miss you."





	Soft Hearts / Electric Souls

**Author's Note:**

> HOWDY so uh. this is a love story! a big sweeping moulin-rouge type love-at-first-sight type nonsense! they're both far more emotional and ready to Love than i would write them in a lost light fic, but this is a bit of an alt timeline, and i'm going fucking wild. brainstorm and whirl are so traumatized and so lost by the time lost light happens that when this concept was suggested to me i was like... i'm going to make it as sugary-sweet as possible 
> 
> i'm dumb as hell and don't know ANYTHING about kimia or the people who worked there and i'm fudging around 1000 separate timelines to make sense of the information i've absorbed from tfwiki 
> 
> this will probably end up being about 5 chapters and i have 3 written right now!!! 
> 
> kick my ass if this isn't finished within a month!!!!!!!!!
> 
> (the chapter titles are whirlstorm songs ehe)

“‘Ey, Six-Wings, you seen where the Wreckers have gone off to?” 

Brainstorm brushes against Chromedome as he turns around, wings flickering irritably. 

“Excuse me?” he says, eyes drawn upward as he lays optics on the mech standing before him. 

The bot’s _big_ , bigger than Brainstorm, bigger than most of the mechs on Kimia’s promenade having their mid-day energon and milling about the mess. Brainstorm smirks beneath the mask. Oh, he’s handsome, too. An empurata victim, yellow optic bright against a rough, blue paint job. The scientist shuffles slightly, crossing his arms but relaxing his shoulders as he stares, not nearly as bothered as he was. 

“I asked you where the Wreckers went,” he says, claws clattering slightly at his sides. “I’m ‘sposed to meet up with them somewhere; got off the ship a bit late. You two got any idea where they went?” 

Chromedome hums in dissent. “Nah, sorry, pal. What about you, Storm?” 

Brainstorm drags his eyes up and down the Wrecker one more time before saying, “Yeah, actually. They’re scheduled to head over to the weapons testing department to have a meeting with the department heads. Which, it just so happens, includes yours truly. Care for the company of the smartest mech on Cybertron on the walk over?”

He can feel rather than hear the noise Chromedome makes, something between amusement and exasperation. The Wrecker vents sharply, a sound Brainstorm thinks might be a laugh as well. 

“Smartest mech on Cybertron, huh?” he says, walking up to the pair of friends, steps surprisingly light for such a heavy mech. “Guess if it was gonna be anywhere, it’d be here.” 

Brainstorm preens. “Precisely. And it’s me.” 

Chromedome coughs after a moment of Brainstorm and their new acquaintance sizing each other up. “I’ve got a meeting with Trailbreaker. I’ll see you later, Stormy. Have fun at the conference.” 

Giving his amica a swift tap on the waist, Chromedome sidles away. Brainstorm tilts his head and nods at the Wrecker, starting to walk off toward the department’s meeting rooms. 

“The name’s Brainstorm,” he says, tapping himself on the chest lightly. “Planetside genius and inventor of Unmentionables, among other things.”

“Whirl,” says the mech, voice thick with that empurata-based reverberation. Brainstorm practically feels it in his chassis. “What are Unmentionables? Sounds right up my alley.” 

“Ohhh, a mech of taste,” Brainstorm says, wicked grin evident in his voice. “They’re weapons the Ethics Committee deems, well, unethical. Against the Non-Conventional Weapons Act, whatever that means. As if weapons can be ethical. Heh.”

Whirl laughs that venting laugh again, loud as gunfire in the hallways passed the promenade. Brainstorm shivers excitedly. “I like your train of thought, Six-Wings. I can’t wait to hear what wild shit you’ve got for us at this meeting.” 

“Believe me: I can’t wait to show you.” 

The meeting passes quickly, Brainstorm glittering under the meeting-room lights as he speaks. A representative from the Ethics Committee, Xaaron, sits and listens, making notes on his holopad as Brainstorm speaks. Usually, a visit from any Ethics Committee member had the jet simmering beneath his armor, but today is different. Besides, Xaaron is something of a friend. Something. 

Perceptor takes his turn to speak, something Brainstorm usually attends to with rapt focus, half waiting for Perceptor to mess up, half hanging onto every word. Instead, he turns toward the Wreckers and watches Whirl where he sits, clawed hands resting on the table top.

That golden optic seems to see straight through Brainstorm’s mask as he licks his lips, servos hovering over his hips lightly while he holds his gaze, soft and warm. Perceptor’s rambling fades distantly into the background, white noise, a cacophony of chatter as the mechs in the room throw questions at him. Whirl lowers his head just slightly. His neck cables curve, and Storm can see where they’re taut near where they meet his chassis. Hot under his armor, he grins, watching as Whirl shutters his optic once, twice, three times. A wink of sorts, he guesses. 

The light in the room streaming in through the windows is clean and pale yellow, catching along mechs’ paint and glinting off of the polished table. Specks of dust float through beams of sunlight. Brainstorm turns his head just so, never breaking Whirl’s teasing, golden gaze. He taps his fingers along a seam near his waist, listens - 

“-storm. Brainstorm!” 

“Wh - Huh?” Brainstorm jerks up, back-struts ramrod straight.

The whole room has turned their attention toward him, and he shuffles his wings in apology as he gives Perceptor a sly, wheedling grin. That loud, venting laugh catches his audials again, and he forces himself not to toss a wink in Whirl’s direction. 

Perceptor sighs. “I asked if you had anything you wanted to say regarding the upgrades on the solar bombs.” 

“Oh, yes!” Brainstorm turns back toward his audience, pushing himself to look at every face in the room, not just Whirl’s, as he flits about excitedly.

It doesn’t quite work, and he gives into the urge to wink suggestively at him whenever he says the words “thrusting power”. He can feel Perceptor rolling his optics. 

Every single time he catches Whirl’s gaze, he feels his spark thrum happily, sending alerts straight to his processor that he can’t quite ignore. 

+

“So, what’d you think of the meeting?” Brainstorm says cheekily, wings pressed against the cold wall of his habsuite as Whirl practically buries his helm prongs between the jet’s neck cables. 

“Easy on the audials and the optics,” Whirl purrs, reverb dancing through Brainstorm’s whole chassis as he pulls on one of his more sensitive cables. “You’re so much more interesting than ol’ Percy.”

Brainstorm gasps, grinning and surging upward into the Wrecker’s touch. “G-glad to hear the truth out of someone. Knew you were a sensible mech.”

“‘M nothin’ if not sensible, sweetspark. Now, why don’t you take that mask off,” Whirl says, voice teasing and low, sending little shocks of electricity against his faceplate. “I know you’ve got a mouth under there. Bet it’s a real pretty one, too.”

For a second, Brainstorm freezes. Whirl loosens the grip he has on Storm’s waist and pulls back just so, optic turned downward. 

“You don’t gotta take the mask off if you don’t want to.” Whirl traces a shockingly gentle claw against the jet’s upper arm.

“Don’t be absurd; I’m fine,” he says, fighting back the pulse of paranoia he feels whenever someone asks him to take his mask off. It’s not like Whirl’s going to notice anything. Not right now. “I’m good.” 

He sends the signal to unlock it, and half a second later there’s a soft click as it comes loose. Quickly, he stows it away in his subspace, licking his lips and looking up at Whirl. The Wrecker looks at him like he wants to commit the moment to memory, which sends shivers straight down Brainstorm back-struts, before Whirl dives right back into kissing and nuzzling at his neck and face. 

“Mouth cables,” Whirl says, optic thin and upturned. “Mmm. Like that. You do that mod yourself?”

Brainstorm can’t stop the near-hysterical giggle that’s pulled from his vocalizer. Whirl zaps and buzzes against the side of his mouth, prongs tugging lightly at the aforementioned cables.

“How’d’ya know I wasn’t forged like this?” he teases, running his hands up and down Whirl’s flattened cockpit. 

He digs his fingers into the seams there, grinning as Whirl shudders and vents. 

“Good point,” he says, tilting his head backwards as Brainstorm kisses and laps at the fine detailing on his armor. He shudders again, tightening his grip on Brainstorm’s waist, making him gasp against his cockpit. “Bet they work real well either way, pretty-bot.”

“Bet you’d like to find out,” Brainstorm says, hand never leaving Whirl’s as he pulls him closer to the bed. 

+

“Nice new paint job,” Chromedome says the next morning. “Where’d you get it. A blind mech with a can of old pigment?” 

Brainstorm glances down at his chassis and legs, an uncontrollable smirk gracing his features as he looks back up. The sharp flecks of paint are almost close enough to his own color to deny the implication, but then, why would he want to do that? He laughs.

“You wouldn’t believe what a mech with no mouth and claws for servos can do,” he whispers, biolights flashing.

Chromedome grins and leans forward across the table. 

“Does this mean your Primus-awful crush on Perceptor is cured?” he whispers back, taking a sip of his morning energon to punctuate the sentence. 

“It’s not a crush, it’s a workplace rivalry! How many times must I remind you?” he says. “But, uh, yeah. Absolutely. Wow.”

Chromedome’s visor lights up with dancing lines of bright yellow light. “Aw, you really like this mech, don’t you?” 

Brainstorm’s spark thrums happily, chiming its agreement softly in his chest. “You could say that.”

“I’ve heard he’s a bit crazy,” Chromedome says, voice rich with warning. “But mechs also say the same thing about you, and I don’t know; I _sorta_ like you, a little bit.”

Laughing, Brainstorm reaches over and pushes Chromedome’s big, stupid, wheel-heavy arm. “You’re the worst, Shoulders.”

“Bet you don’t mean that, slag-for-brains,” he teases back.

And then Brainstorm sees Whirl across the promenade, and everything about the morning shines a little brighter. Light seems to follow Whirl wherever he goes. He tilts his head and waves lightly to the mech in the distance, wings quivering when he acknowledges him with a nod and a quickly upturned golden optic. Brainstorm basks in the glow of it. 

“You’re a mess,” Chromedome admonishes, turning his head to watch Whirl make his way through the crowd. 

Brainstorm just smiles to himself, taps his fingers against the table, and flicks a piece of bright blue paint from his thighs. 

+

That night, Whirl shows up at Brainstorm’s quarters again, two pints of engex in his servos. Brainstorm lets him in with a grin, mask off before the door slides shut. They don’t even touch the high-grade until several hours later, fuel tanks screaming “low fuel” alerts at the both of them. 

For awhile after, they just talk, soft and brimming with post-overload energy. Brainstorm tells him about the audio-bullets he’s been working on, and Whirl asks every questions the scientist always hopes people ask about his work. Whirl tells him about his time with the Wreckers, and Storm’s whole body practically hurts from trying to hold in peals of obnoxious laughter after every story.

Whirl runs his claws gently across Brainstorm’s back as they lay together, tipsy and warm and fond. 

His spark thrums so loudly, he’s sure Whirl must hear it. 

“Shanix for your thoughts,” Whirl says.

 _I’m thinking about how much it’s going to suck when you leave, Brainstorm thinks loudly. I’m thinking about how I haven’t felt my spark sing like that since Quark. I’m thinking about -_

“Thinking about how I still need to clear that shipment of 300 brand rifles for you tomorrow,” Brainstorm says, sitting up so he can kiss one of the guns on Whirl’s chest. 

“That’s my little weapons engineer,” Whirl says, venting his funny, air-filled laugh. “I was sorta thinking about how much it’s gonna suck not to have you back on our damn ship. You and that artist’s processor of yours.”

Brainstorm stills, mouth still pressed gently against Whirl’s chassis. His spark sings. 

“Glad I’m not the only one,” he says, forcing himself to say it loudly, because he knows if he whispers it the way he wants to, it’s going to mean something more. “At least the Wreckers will be back through here in a few years, right? It’s not goodbye forever, or anything.”

Whirl’s cockpit vibrates as he shakes his head. “I dunno. If I make it a few years, it’ll be a damn miracle.”

 _Don’t say that,_ Brainstorm thinks, spark racing. _Don’t joke. I know I don’t know you, but, Primus, I can’t lose you, t -_

“That’s fair,” he says. “But, just, you know, do me the favor of not dying, ‘kay?”

Whirl hums in agreement and nudges a beeping kiss against his cheek. “Anything for you, Six-Wings.”

+

They spend Whirl’s last day at Kimia together. Brainstorm skips work, tells Perceptor to cover for him (which he knows he absolutely will not do), and drags Whirl to the kinesthetic and ship-design portion of the facility. They spend a few hours playing on some of the old rides there, the so-called “test-rigs” that measure how well Cybertronians react under extreme movement. They strap themselves to the ones that spin, laughing and yelling as they tumble in circles around the room, giggling and clinging to one another as soon as the rides end. Whirl scoops Brainstorm up and hoists him over his shoulders, pretending to threaten to shake him off when the jet covers his optic with teasing servos.

Brainstorm takes him to look over the vats of manufacturing water in the back of the facility, and they sit under deep, blue running lights in the control room. No one is stationed there in the day-time, and rarely at night, and Brainstorm pushes Whirl flat on his back-struts to perch on his waist while he trails burning-hot kisses along his chest. The machines filtering the water for processing are deafening. Somehow, he’s still not entirely unconvinced that Whirl can’t hear the symphony in his spark chamber. 

At mid-day, Whirl buys engex from the promenade’s nicest shop, the kind of thing that Brainstorm could never buy himself. It’s bubbling, and ice-cold, and tastes something like what he imagines love tastes like. They ditch the facility and go into town, to a crystal park, toasting to anything and everything on their minds. 

“Wait, so you’re telling me Kimia doesn’t pay you? In money?” Whirl says skeptically, poking at Brainstorm’s side. 

Brainstorm shrugs a bit defensively. “They provide my habsuite, anything I need to live, a lab to work on my stuff. Who needs money when you’re a hot commodity? I’ve been working at places like this for most of my life. Doesn’t matter.” 

“You’re mad,” he says, shaking his helm. “No wonder you’re so damn weird.”

Brainstorm scoffs and elbows him in the waist, grinning when that elicits a well-deserved noise of indignation. 

“Oh, you’ve done it,” Whirl says, placing the engex on the ground. 

“Done what?” he says, stepping away slightly. He has to keep in a totally pathetic giggle at the posture of sudden utter determination his date has taken on. 

“ _It._ ” Whirl steps toward and grabs Brainstorm with one of his hands, right around the middle, using the other to worry and poke right under his wings and shoulders. 

_“Whirl!”_ he chirps, trying and failing to wiggle out of his grasp. His biolights go wild, zipping up and down and across his whole body as he gasps and laughs. “Tickling is - should so, so be illegal, you absolute aft - “

“I don’t care if it’s illegal. You’re the one who elbowed me first,” Whirl says, venting laugh echoing through the park. 

“You’re so mean!” he manages to squeak between his own laughter, fans running loudly. 

Eventually he manages to shimmy out of Whirl’s unforgiving grasp, wings fluttering in delight. “Hah!” 

Whirl bounds after him and kisses him. The polished outcropping of sunstone glimmers in the golden-hour sunshine, next to columns of pink quartz so tall they dwarf the two mechs. Brainstorm grabs his shoulders and lets himself be lifted up in the kiss, wrapping his legs around his middle. 

When sunset comes, they fly back toward Kimia with just enough time to watch the final rays of light settle over the horizon. Brainstorm watches Whirl as the stars come out, reflecting like glitter in the black near his optic. 

“Stay with me tonight?” says Brainstorm, when Whirl walks him back to his habsuite. “I know you mentioned that you don’t like to recharge with someone else near, but, I just thought, since I don’t know when I’m going to see you again - “

“Makes sense,” Whirl says, following Brainstorm into the room. “Gonna cost you, though.”

“Cost me?” Brainstorm forces a smile, pretends he isn’t thinking about saying goodbye to him tomorrow. 

“One letter a week,” Whirl states, settling onto Brainstorm’s bed as though he’s been visiting his whole life. “Until I see you next.” 

_Thrum. Thrum. Thrum._

“A letter a week...from me. To you.” 

“That’s what I said, genius. If the price is too high for you, I get it, but I really didn’t take you for such a cheapskate, Stormy. Oh, wait...forgot the smartest mech alive doesn’t even know how to do monetary transactions.” Whirl grins and shakes his head. “I’ll be going, if you can’t - “

“Of course,” Brainstorm says. “A lofty price but ultimately worth it, for the payment back.”

“Thought you might see it my way.” He reaches out and pulls him toward him, bringing Brainstorm to stand right in front of the bed. “I’m not one for, uh, feelings. But you’re sorta special, Storm. Definitely wouldn’t mind hearin’ from you for the foreseeable future.” 

Whirl must be able to see his spark shining clear through his chest. “Ditto, Whirligig.”

Tired from the events of the day, they swap sleep-ridden kisses, messy and slow, until Brainstorm falls into recharge on top of Whirl’s folded cockpit. 

When he wakes up in the middle of the night, he’s still clinging to his midsection, and Whirl has one arm hooked tight over him. He listens, processor fuzzy with sleep, to the sound of his quietly purring engine. Seconds later he drifts back into recharge before the bittersweet reality of their time together pulls him from the whisper of his dreams. 

In the morning, when he wakes up for real, Whirl is already back online, stroking softly along Brainstorm’s wings. Storm shivers and raises his head to look Whirl in the eye. 

“Good morning,” he says, and Whirl says it back, and then a wave of impending sadness hits Brainstorm so heavily he has to duck his head back into Whirl’s side, immediately shaking with something a step down from sobs. 

Whirl has the good grace not to comment on it, just strokes him a little harder, and threads his claws through the hand that’s resting on his chassis.

“I’m gonna miss you too, dream-bot,” Whirl says, voice thick with emotion. “You’re special, Six-Wings. Brainstorm. Wish we could have met in another life.”

“Or another time,” Brainstorm agrees, poking his head out from Whirl’s side. “Don’t you _ever_ tell anyone I cried over a mech I knew for three days.”

“Secret’s safe with me, sweetspark,” he says, crossing an “X” over his spark chamber with the hand that’s holding Brainstorm’s. “Sweet of you, though. I’d probably cry, too, if I still could.”

Brainstorm says goodbye to Whirl right inside the entrance of the ship-dock, presses his facemask against the Wrecker’s prongs, and manages to keep in a surprised shriek when he’s scooped up in Whirl’s arms one last time. 

“One letter a week,” Whirl calls from the door of the ship. “Don’t forget about me, Six-Wings!” 

Brainstorm drafts the first letter that night, three words long, sends it the next evening: _I miss you._

**Author's Note:**

> TALK TO ME AT @H0TROD ON TUMBLR !!!!! :P


End file.
